on the broadcast tonight, spreading scandal. shockwaves from the rupert murdock media empire scandal have now arrived here. two big resignations and there's more to come. taking sides in libya's civil war. the u.s. now knows officially who to back. we'll ha a report from the front lines. ready, set, stop. the traffic event of the century called carmageddon, just hours away. and don't blink or you might have missed a lot. tonight, some of the stories that went by too quickly this past week. that went by too quickly this past week. "nightly news" begins now.

captions paid for by nbc-universal television good evening, the scandal in the rupert murdock media family is metastasizing tonight, from england to america with two big resignations and an apology from murdock himself and it's far from over. this scandal started with newspaper reporters hacking into voicemails of government officials and ordinary citizens. we don't yet know how many people are who they all are, but it's already cost murdock dearly. his empire is taking a hit. today the woman who ran his uk newspaper business quit and the man who ran "the wall street journal" for murdock quit after 57 years with him. we'll talk business impact tonight with david faber of cnbc in just a moment. the breaking news out of london tonight, nbc's stephanie gosk starts us off tonight. stephanie, good evening. >> reporter: good evening brian. well, les henson was the head of

news international in the uk from 1995 through 2007. the current head of news international also resigned today, rebecca brooks. she worked under henton when illegal phone hacking took place. the most damaging accusations over the years, the one that triggered this crisis led rupert murdock to an unlikely meeting here. rupert murdock met with millie dowler's family, the young girl whose phone was hacked by reporters. when the meeting ended, murdock was greeted outside by cat calls. he was ushered inside but wouldn't stay there long. >> as founder of the company i was appalled and i will find out when it happened. and i apologize. >> reporter: earlier in the

tied today, the head of news international, rebecca brooks resigned. in a letter to her staff who wrote, this is now detracted attention from all our honest endeavors to fix the problems of the past. those endeavors began this week with shutting down the news of the world and then news corps backed out of a multimillion dollar merger with bskyb. brook's resignation today will be followed by a letter of apology by rupert murdock himself printed in british papers tomorrow. we are sorry for the serious wrong doing that occurred, it will say, we regret not acting faster to sort things out. but tonight it is clear murdock's problems aren't just here in the uk, hinckley's resignation followed an announcement from the fbi that it has opened it's own investigation into news international. u.s. lawmakers pressured the bureau to act after an unsubstantiated record that news of the world tried to hack the phones of 9/11 victims. still murdock's biggest problems are still here in the uk, on

tuesday, he will appear alongside his son james and rebecca brooks to answer questions in parliament. they can expect a grilling. brian? >> stephanie gosk starting us off in britain tonight. and now david faber who has joined us from cnbc. with the impact of this so far and perhaps to come. give us a damage assessment if it all stopped today. and is there any telling where this goes? >> certainly there's no telling where it goes, as you heard stephanie report, brian. we are, of course, and many investors are focused on what happens now in the united states. when the fbi starts to issue subpoenas, if fact they do, who knows who they will find, if they're looking for hacking, the possibility economists that they'll find that it occurred in the u.s. rupert murdock has really never faced anything like it. for his long career, he was unable to dictate the course of events. and he did an about face this week. he began this week with his arm around rebecca brooks, the woman who ran the news international.

and les henton, a man who brought his sandwiches when he was 15 years old, who has been there for 57 years also gone. james murdock, number three at the corporation. from here we simply don't know, but it is far from over, although murdock certainly does seem to have become a lot more willing to compromise. >> an apology won't end it quite yet, david faber, as always, thank you for coming by and spending time with us. now overseas to the news today about libya. secretary of state hillary clinton on the road made the announcement now official, the u.s. formally and officially considers the rebels in libya to be the legitimate government. gadhafi still controls tripoli, but on the ground, the rebels fighting in the western mountains could use support from the international community. nbc's mike tiabbi has been in the fight this week and reports from the town of qawalish in that region. >> reporter: by any measure, this has clearly been an up and down week for the rebels,

winning and losing and fighting to retake a single town, wrk qawalish that would have moved them one notch closer to tripoli. the new promise of international, financial and political support was welcome news for these fighters. said former gadhafi air force colonel, who's now fighting for the rebels. is that good news for you to hear? >> exactly, it's very, very good news and gives us more of a chance to give freedom to our people and our country, especially. >> reporter: the chances for a rebel victory seemed limited in our two visits to the changing front line earlier in the week. we all stick together, right? okay. >> reporter: we saw very young fighters going into battle with home made rocket launchers and then scattering with gadhafi's heavier artillery landed close by. the rebels have been left with a catch-as-catch-can arsenal.

weapons seized from gadhafi's troops were made from scratch, or with children doing the cleaning, salvage from a discard pile. still, the rebels did retake qawalish, both sides suffering casualties, but the front line scraping past one more war-torn town. like so many other places in the mountains where the fighting has ebbed and flowed, this tiny village is now a ghost town, nobody here but soldiers. now it's rebel soldiers who are here, and if they don't know it, their commanders do, promises of money, or claims of victory, saying it doesn't make it so. >> and the unrest continued today in a place where a revolution has already taken place in egypt where we covered the uprising against mubarak months ago and where friday as you know is the day of prayer and lately the day of protest and where they were out in the streets again today. our chief foreign correspondent richard engel is back in tahrir

square in cairo where it all started. richard, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. when i spoke to you last friday, the egyptian revolution was starting all over again and as you can see, the protesters are still here, they believe that egypt's transitionary government isn't implementing reform quickly enough, and they are starting to see results. this week that transition government fired about 700 senior police officers including 500 generals. they also postponed elections here until november, giving these demonstrators more time to organize themselves politically. in syria, however, a very different situation, today syria saw perhaps the biggest demonstration yet, more than a million people out in the streets in nine different cities, all protesting against

the government, although the syrian government is cracking down, injuring more than 20 people just today. we learned more today about what some have called osama bin laden's wish list, taken from his compound that was raided by u.s. navy s.e.a.l.s, u.s. officials say it's a mixture of aspiration and delusion, but reports now indicate he wanted to target president obama and general david petraeus and the ten-year 9/11 anniversary including a possible plot to attack official aircraft, like air force one, marine one and general petraeus's helicopter. as we said, u.s. officials stress that there's no evidence that any of this ever got past the discussion stage with now former associates. in this country, in d.c., the battle over the federal budget slogged through another day today. and the president used home field advantage, that podium in the white house briefing room to press his side of the argument with republicans on the hill and the stakes for the u.s. economy could not be higher with that

august 2 deadline looming. our chief white house correspondent chuck todd is among the questioners and is with us from the briefing room. chuck, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. this much we know, this debt ceiling is likely to get raised. but this idea that somehow there was going to be a grand bargain, deficit reduction, entitlements, all tied together with this debt ceiling, even the president today acknowledged that's all but dead. after a week of talks and no deal, president obama used his second press conference of the week to make one last pitch for the so-called grand bargain, we have a unique opportunity to do something big. we have a chance to stabilize america's finances for a decade, for 15 years, or 20 years. if we're willing to seize the moment. >> reporter: still with signs a large deal is out of reach, the president lowered his sights, making a plea for what he called

balanced deficit reduction will be part of any deal. >> i'm glad that congressional leaders don't want to default, but i think the american people expect more than that. >> reporter: the sticking point all along for the white house has been taxes, an issue the president argued puts republicans in washington at odds with some of their own supporters. >> the clear majority of republican voters think that any deficit reduction package should have a balanced approach and should include some revenues. >> reporter: on capitol hill, speaker john boehner stood his ground. >> our stand on the debt limit has been clear. there will be no tax hikes because tax hikes destroy jobs. >> reporter: as for the heated debates that reportedly took place between the president and republican eric cantor this week, the president played down that episode. >> i'm not interested in the

tv aspects of who said what and did somebody's feelings get hurt. >> reporter: the president did provide a detail of what he was willing to support as far as entitlement, he said he would support means testing for wealthier americans when it comes to medicare. but right now that's off the table, next week you're going to see a lot of posturing, the deal itself that does raise the debt ceiling, we'relikely to see that in about a week. >> chick todd, thanks from the briefing room. things did get ugly on a tax taxi way in boston. it was a jolt to both aircraft, close to 300 passengers on board in all. nobody seriously hurt, the damage was very visible. investigators will now review tapes, interview and test both crews in determining the cause. when we come back here tonight, could it be scientific proof that nice guys may not always finish first, but they may live happier? and later, catch up time on

the news of the week that went by just too fast.

you'll be happy to hear there's new scientific research tonight on alpha males, the hard charging dominant types and claims they may not be all that, after all. it turns out at least among the baboon study group, it's better to be a wing man than the main guy. our report torrent from nbc's mark potter. >> reporter: as every primate knows, it's good being the alpha male. if you're a baboon, it does have its advantages. >> the fop ranking male does have the greatest priority for accessing females. >> before the downside after research at princeton university is that it can also be very stressful. after clawing their way to the top, lead baboons have to fight tooth and nail to stay there. >> the alpha male does have

higher stress hormones than the male just below. >> reporter: the question is whether these findings translate to human males. one of them tony soprano, a mob boss who also had panic attacks. the sort of stress psychiatrists say can be harmful over the long run. >> experiencing high levels of stress chronically, can have an impact on the health of your cardiovascular system. >> reporter: the princeton reachers found it might actually be better to be the number two baboon, the beta male, who but who doesn't have to fight so hard but still attracts females. at jungle island in miami, tourists speculated on what was best. a scottish visitor and his wife concede he was a happy bait da. >> i probably was looking for an alpha male, but i don't know how it happened that i became alpha male. >> apparently it's sometimes best to let someone else be king of the jungle. mark potter, nbc news, miami. up next here tonight, there's no avoiding it now, l.a.'s carmageddon is hours away

and barreling down the road to a dead stop.

.

it's not the 5 or the 10 or the 110, you are looking at the 405, as they call it in l.a. southern californians, you have been warned, the rest of us get to watch the tv event of the century, they call it carmageddon. starting tonight, they will shut down the 405 freeway, a big l.a. artery and there's no stopping it now. a report tonight from nbc's george lewis. >> reporter: it's one of the world's busiest freeways, carrying more than half a million cars on the average summer weekend. the billion dollar widening of the freeway, aims at relieving traffic jams. >> it's a great way to move people, reduce congestion and improve the air. >> reporter: to do that construction crews have to tear down and remodel this bridge, forcing the shutdown of a ten-mile stretch of the 405 this weekend. long time knx radio traffic reporter tommy jackson. >> it certainly will be a traffic disaster and nightmare. >> reporter: shannon o'kelley, chief operating officer for the l.a. health system says doctors and nurses will camp out at ucla's hospital this weekend. >> we're looking at being able

to house around 500 folks. >> reporter: in the middle of all this, rachel israel and john pollock are getting married tomorrow, and some of their guests are worried. >> they were nervous to tell us that we would panic too much. but most people were just, what are you going to do? >> reporter: many of those guests are flying into los angeles international airport and staying in beverly hills. the wedding is in simi valley, northwest of los angeles. the easiest way to get there? the 405. no longer an option. now the couple is telling their guests to prepare for a three-hour trip to the wedding. >> give them some water, give them some drinks and hope for the best. >> reporter: jay leno has been suggesting alternate rules. >> once you hit the canyon, high up the santa monica mountains, rappel down and then get in the l.a. river. this will bring you into the san fernando valley that will take you to the 27 and back on the 101 freeway. >> reporter: or just stay home. the bridge behind me is being torn down in two segments, so

once we survive carmageddon this weekend, we get to do it all over again next year. brian? >> george lewis in his d.o.t. mandated safety vest tonight. george hunker down for the weekend, we'll talk to you on monday. up next here tonight, we'll pay a little attention and spend some time looking at some stories that went flying by us this past week.

finally tonight, as is too often the case, much of what we reported on was thoroughly depressing, from the scorching drought in the south to our lawmakers, to having to say farewell to a real profile in courage, the ordinary woman named betty ford who became first lady and changed life in this country forever, by destigmatizing breast cancer and addiction like only she could. while the big news stories dominated, there was other news we didn't have the time or space to fit in the broadcast this week, beginning with an item about time and space and the phone call the president placed to the space station just today. >> that's funny, see, because i was just dialing out for pizza and i didn't expect to end up in space. >> reporter: the shuttle astronauts spent the week in space after the final launch

which marks the end of the u.s. space program, a melancholy occasion for those of us who fear what it might mean for american ingenuity and innovation and imagination and exploration. this family from new jersey posted these photos this week. they show father and won attending the first shuttle watch in april of '81 and the last launch, just a week ago. it was the favorite on the net this week. and netflix jacked up their price for streaming movies and dvd's by mail by 60% starting in september. it may be the best thing to happen to blockbuster since the vhs. they say they'll mail out dvds at a better price, it's just their stores that aren't around anymore. another sign of the times, proper paper savings bonds are going away. the perennial graduation gift going back decades will soon only be available online, they'll work the same, just far

less important seeming. speaking of which, tmz posted photos this week, showing donald rumsfield, a man who once ran the pentagon and two wars, getting the full monty, pants unbuckled you better at least offer to buy me dinner tsa search at chicago's o'hare airport. he says his titanium hips and shoulder makes the machines go off. while to the east in washington, an airport security expert went off on the tsa this week and told them to search the more likely possible terrorists. speaking of terrorism, a russian diplomat met with gadhafi this week and came away with the chilling words that the libyan leader says he's got a lot of missiles left and he will blow up tripoli if that's what it takes to put down the rebels. the libyan government later said they love tripoli and wouldn't dream of such a thing. a poignant scene in afghanistan, after the murder of his half brother this week, the afghan brother hamid karzai, overcome with grief, climbed in

his own brother's freshly dug grave, sobbing uncontrollably. this week marked the 100th anniversary of the time when a guy landed a plane on the white house lawn, something they frown upon these days. chicagoans this week have someone new to look up to. the massive marilyn monroe. it's the work of the famous sculptor sue ber sewer johnson. and we lost a voice this week that reminded a lot of us of the good old days. ♪ i'm going to tell the world that i love you ♪ >> while way too many teenagers sang it erroneously on the car radio, the vocalist was rob grill of the grass roots. he died this week at the age of 67. less well known, the fact that the lead guitarist on that song was creed bratton, the guy who

plays creed on "the office" on nbc. and that was a surprise to a lot of people in our office at nbc. so we all learned something this week. and that ends the week on a friday night in new york. thank you for being here with us for all of it. i'm brian williams, lester holt will be here this weekend. we, of course, hope to see you right back here on monday night, in the meantime, have a good weekend. in the meantime, have a good weekend. good night. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.co m m ? right now, did he walk on the edge? the wife of a bay area man killed in a freak accident speaks out. >> the eyes in the sky, the new cameras keeping tab on crimes. the news at 6:00 starts right now.